FSBO Guide - Authorify

I tell prospective applicants to send me an email with the subject line “Application for the position of a virtual assistant.” I also ask them to send me answers to some questions in the email. For example, I will ask them to tell me the four colors of the flag of the Philippines (red, blue, white, and yellow) or tell me the distance, in kilometers, from the Earth to the Moon. These questions might seem silly, but they serve an important purpose, which I will explain. The first thing the email will do is help you identify people who won’t — or can’t — completely obey instructions. You should avoid such people. In every job advertisement, I try to quickly identify and dismiss those who don’t obey simple instructions. It may be because they didn’t pay enough attention. I came up with this method when it became too stressful to go through the hundreds of applications I received. I realized it was a waste of my time to go through up to 200 resumes, knowing that most of them exaggerate the person’s skills. So I devised an effective method to identify the best of them without wasting much time. Once you have identified one or two job candidates who impress you, then you can begin conducting interviews. Before they get to that point, though, I check the email they sent, because I want to see that they obeyed my instruction to the letter. There are a lot of ways to get creative with the interview process. Sometimes, I ask for samples. I may ask web developers to send me links to all the websites they have built in the past year. Usually, I require at least five such examples. This gives me the opportunity to observe their skills closely. I bring up the websites during interviews and ask them questions about how each site was built. For example, I’ll ask how much time it took them to get it done. By screening individuals in this manner, I reduce the number of applicants from hundreds to maybe 10 or 20, and it helps me determine which of them is really worth the trouble of assigning a test task. ● Using Test Tasks Effectively The test task will show you a few things. It will show you those who are really interested in getting the job because it is those people who will take the time to complete your task. It will also show you how each applicant thinks and what their work style is like. This is why I think a test task is the best way of interviewing, even though it might be difficult to design a test task for some jobs.